He scans the file. “Here for arraignment,” he says. He asks for a statement of representations for the record.
“Paul Madriani, acting district attorney of Davenport County, and Lenore Goya of that office appearing for the people,” I say.
“Adrian Chambers representing the defendant, Andre Iganovich.”
Through an interpreter, the court has Iganovich identify himself for the record.
Fisher does not waste time here. He cuts to the substance of the charges, four counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances. He does a formal reading which drones on for several minutes, mostly reading from bench books, filling in the blanks with the names of the victims, the dates of death, a recitation of the special circumstances that carry the death penalty.
He finishes, gives the Russian a grave look from high on the bench, an expression that transcends the language barrier.
“Mr. Iganovich. Do you understand the charges?”
A brief interpretation.
“Da.”
“Yes.”
“Then to the charge of first-degree murder in the death of Sharon Collins on the twenty-fourth of June of this year, how do you plead?”
Iganovich says something, unintelligible, to his interpreter. A brief conversation, a few words with Chambers.
Then: “Not Guilty.”
They repeat this exercise three more times. Each time a plea of not guilty is entered.
“Very well,” says Fisher. “Any early motions?”
If a pitch for psych-eval is to come, it will be now.
Lenore casts a quick glance at Chambers. I can feel her edging forward, inching her way up to get into it. Trial, even in the preliminaries, is a form of combat. Those involved always itch for the opening shots to be taken, the only cure for cotton mouth and butterflies.
Chambers is in his client’s ear, talking with both hands.
He comes back out, looks at the bench. “Your honor. We would request that the protective order on pretrial publicity entered by the municipal court be continued in effect,” he says, “in these proceedings.”
Fisher smiles, obviously pleased that someone should take this responsible act. It avoids the judge having to impose it himself, turns the heat off with the papers. Chambers is earning early brownie points.
“Any objections, Mr. Madriani?”
We of course have none. I tell the court this.
“Very well. There being no objection I will incorporate the order of the lower court as it is written,” says Fisher. He makes a note in the file. “Anything else?” he says. He looks to Chambers first.
Goya nudges me with her thumb on my pant leg, as if to say, “here it comes”—the pitch to plumb the bottomless pit of the Russian’s psyche, Chambers’s vision of perpetual employment for subliminal set, the couch doctors.
“Mr. Chambers?”
“Your honor, we would like to defer other motions until we have a trial date.” Adrian is busy again, talking to his client. Like a master chess player he is busy putting all the set pieces in proper order.
“Any objection, Mr. Madriani, to returning to the matter of motions after we have a trial date?”
“None, your honor.” Lenore will have to wait a little longer.
“Then I guess we’re ready for a date.”
“How many days, gentlemen? How long do you estimate for trial?” says Fisher.
“Seven days for the state’s case,” I say.
“Nine for defense,” says Chambers.
If he’s true to form, Adrian will be scouring the streets for alibi witnesses. A legion of winos will no doubt benefit from witness fees to augment their welfare checks in the month of this trial. Such are the tactics of Adrian Chambers. Suspension from the practice, I would venture, has taught him only that the vice is not in doing the act, but in getting caught.
“With voir dire, and arguments, pretrial motions, we’d better make it twenty-five days,” says Fisher. “Betty, can you give us some dates?” Fisher directs his clerk to open the big book while he poises with his pen to make notes on a form, a minute order that will be placed in the file, copies to the parties.
Betty Hamilton, Fisher’s clerk, studies the massive book like some gray-haired angel gatekeeping at heaven’s door.
“Does either party wish an early pretrial conference?” says Fisher.
“It might be a good idea,” says Chambers.
Fisher looks at me. “No objection, your honor.”
He checks the little box on the form. This will give us a chance to lay out ground rules for the trial.
“Plea is entered,” Fisher’s mumbling to himself, checking the little boxes all in order. A hundred and ten thousand a year and he spends eighty percent of his time “X-ing” little boxes. Good work if you can get it. “The defendant waives time,” he’s still mumbling. Another X in the box.
“No, your honor, we don’t.”
“Emm?” Chambers has pulled Fisher from his reverie over the little form.
“The defendant does not waive time,” he says.
Fisher gives Adrian a look, like somehow the judge’s hearing aid has failed him. He taps his ear once to ensure that it hasn’t fallen out.
I stand daunted, stunned. It takes several seconds before I can pull myself together enough to look over at Goya. Her jaw is slack.
“I don’t think I heard that,” says Fisher.
“The defendant does not waive time.” Chambers repeats it a third time, clipping off the letters with his lips so that Fisher can read them from across the room.
“Counsel,” he says. “This is a capital trial. Your client is on trial for his life. You’re not telling this court you’re prepared to go to trial in sixty days?”
“Your honor, I’m concerned about this,” I say.
“No more than the court,” says Fisher.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, your honor. My client has a right to a speedy trial. He is demanding the right.”
“Does your client understand what you’re doing? The risk he’s taking?”
“He does.”
“I might like to hear that from him,” says Fisher. He’s motioning toward Iganovich, then grumbles at the translator to do his thing.
“Mr. Iganovich,” says Fisher. “Do you understand that this is a capital trial, that you could be executed, put to death, if you are convicted?”
He waits a few moments.
“Da.” A surly look from the Russian, who has no intention of being cowed by this old man.
“Yes.”
“And do you understand that your lawyer has just declined to waive your right to a speedy trial? This means that your trial must begin within sixty days of today’s date. This is not much time to prepare for a complex trial. Your case could be compromised by the shortage of time.” Fisher waits a second for the interpreter to catch up, looking for signs of affect on the Russian’s face. Nothing.
“You could find yourself at a severe disadvantage if proper preparation is not made for this trial. Do you understand this?”
Iganovich listens to the interpreter finish, then shrugs and makes a face, a wrinkled prune of disinterest.
“Da.” A few more words, unintelligible to the interpreter.
“Yes. I understand. What difference?” says the interpreter.
“The difference,” says the judge, “could be the difference between life and death.”
Words by the interpreter. Another prune, and no verbal response.
“Does he understand that?”
A quick interpretation.
“He does.”
Angry resignation by the judge. “Very well,” he says. “Betty, what can we do in sixty days?” he says.
Pained expressions back up at the bench from the clerk. She’s motioning, like it’s impossible. I hear a little colloquy off the record between Betty and Fisher.
“Judge Ingel is scheduled for vacation. You’re in trial, two cases.” More muffled word
s between the two, little bits and pieces. One of the other judges is assigned out of county on another matter. Judge Kerney is scheduled for surgery that cannot be postponed.
Fisher is perplexed, angry that he’s been put in this position. He looks at Chambers as much as to say “fine, you want it, you got it.”
“Judge Ingel will just have to take the trial,” he says. “He can reschedule his trip to Maui.”
I stand there in a blind stupor. Derek Ingel, the humorless fucking Prussian, his disposition soured by a trashed trip to more pleasant climes, is now to try this case. Nearly as bad as if I’d just been tossed back across the river to try the case in the venue of the Coconut in Capital City. I would prefer a ten-day junket to hell.
Chapter Twenty-five
If one’s actions can be said to speak, Adrian Chambers is the lord of liars, the master of misdirection. His trip to see Forrest Hunter, the paragon of state shrinks, is now taking on the smell of a well-baited trap. The only ones psyched were us. He has led us down the daisy path of delay, setting all the decoys in motion, while he was whittling away on a mass of paper, a lawyer’s blizzard of motions, and edging toward an early trial date.
“Sonofabitch,” Lenore is swearing under her breath, in my office this morning, pawing through the pile of written motions, more pages than the Internal Revenue Code. There are motions to quash the indictment, a renewed motion for bail, motions to suppress evidence, and a motion for discovery more extensive than the Articles of Confederation.
Chambers has now jammed us, pushed us into the most notable prosecution in this county’s history, on short notice.
Not to be outdone, Derek Ingel has turned the screws down even harder. It seems he has no intention of rescheduling his vacation. Ingel sent us all little missives yesterday by fax. We now face trial in little more than three weeks. The trial will take no more than thirty days, says Ingel, complete with verdict, or we will deal with his wrath.
Apparently Ingel is not troubled by his earlier conversations with Acosta, the fact that the Coconut has leaned on him for a little extra justice in these cases.
“A certifiable asshole,” says Goya.
I wonder whether Lenore’s talking about Chambers or Ingel. For the moment I can probably take my pick.
She’s reading one of the discovery motions dumped on us by Adrian at the end of our court session with Fisher.
“He wants us to deliver the entire investigative file on the Scofield murders,” says Lenore. “In his dreams. It’s irrelevant. We’ll quash it.” The fighting words of a pissed-off lawyer. Having killed it in her fantasies, she slaps the page down on the corner of my desk. Goya is both tired and angry. She is missing sleep from three nights running, prepping for an argument on psych-eval that never came.
She’s into the next motion, reads for several seconds, agitated hissing under her breath.
“Pendajo,” she says. In the Catholic Mission school of my early childhood, little Mexican children often used this word as a pejorative for others. I do not know its literal translation, but I know it is not good.
“His father’s a puta in drag,” she says. Lenore’s not talking about our case, but Adrian’s ancestry. In moments of fatigue and stress, it seems her dark Latin temper takes hold. An edge of adolescent hardness slips from beneath the educated veneer. She looks at me to see if I have noticed.
I tell her to relax. “Not the first time a lawyer’s been had. It won’t be the last.” She blames herself, I think, for being taken in by Chambers’s sleight of hand with the shrinks.
I smile at her, a little encouragement. “Face it. It was a smooth move.” I’m talking about Adrian’s feigned strategy of delay that suckered us so well.
She fixes me with a piercing stare, olive eyes.
“About as smooth as a barbed-wire enema,” she says. Lenore is not magnanimous in defeat. Having made her the fool, I think Chambers has now joined Roland on her short list, people with matching dolls, into whom I suspect she may be sticking pins at night.
“I should have seen it coming,” I tell her. I try to lighten her spirits by taking much of the blame myself. She shrugs this off and goes on reading the motions.
When Chambers jammed us on time for the preliminary hearing, I thought he was just testing our evidence, our ability to obtain a quick indictment. Since all that hung in the balance then was the perfecting of formal charges, there was little risk to his move, not much downside. I did not see it, his play to shorten time, as some grand strategy.
Lenore tells me that she believes the defense, Iganovich, will pay the price, that it was not a smart move to shoot for an early trial date, especially now that they have bought Ingel as the trial judge.
I’m not so sure she’s right, but I don’t say this. In measuring a case I am told that Adrian is a quick read. A mind that is a vacuum for facts, he sifted these and made an early decision: that time was not on his side. In part this is dictated by the evidence of our case. It is all physical and circumstantial in nature, cut pieces of cord, metal stakes, and the location where they were found, a vehicle owned by the defendant. These you can touch, tangibles that will not die, or fade over time, like a witness or his memory.
The passage of time is only likely to make things worse for them. It may bring the production of a witness, the vandal who smashed the window of the van, who may have seen the contents in the vehicle, who can testify that they were not placed there by some intervening third party.
Delay may find the Russian linked to the other murders in Oregon or down south.
With time may come the wallets and purses of the Davenport victims, their elusive documents of identification, and a trail that could lead back to Iganovich.
Then there is the riddle of the Scofield murders, a similar scenario with a different perpetrator, a difficulty for our case. In time this too may be solved. This crime, for which I suspect Adrian can produce a credible alibi for his client, if still unresolved at the time of trial can be exploited, used to move shadows of doubt across the stage in his unfolding drama of defense.
In all this there is one certainty: Adrian Chambers is no fool. He has perceived correctly that, in the trial of this cause, time is not his friend.
Pretrial motions are the first skirmish lines thrown out by lawyers in preparation for the full-blown battle of open trial. They are important because they set the groundwork for the conflict that follows. Lose a motion and you may find yourself stripped of vital evidence, doing combat hobbled on one leg, or missing an arm.
Today Lenore and I are meeting in-camera, behind closed doors, with Judge Fisher, out of the presence of glaring lights, and the press, and more important without the attendance of Adrian Chambers. Only the court clerk is here to take down our words.
This is what is known in the law as an ex parte conference with the judge, generally forbidden except in specific cases.
Fisher has agreed to hear all the pretrial motions in our case, a concession to Ingel.
“What’s the problem here?” he says. “This could be exculpatory evidence.”
Fisher’s talking about the witness in the trees at the Scofield killings, our prime witness. Adrian has thrown a net over this information by the breadth of his discovery motion.
We are here without him today, courtesy of a crack in the law, an initiative passed by voters and generally considered the bane of the defense bar. It allows us to talk privately with the judge on the narrow issues of police informants and witnesses.
“It may be exculpatory, your honor, but we don’t know. We have no idea as to the identity of this witness, or for that matter whether he or she, whoever they were, really saw anything.”
“It’s part of an ongoing investigation,” says Lenore. “We shouldn’t be compelled to disclose the information.”
We are double-teaming Fisher today, a last-ditch effort to keep Chambers away from this stuff, so that he cannot use it to confuse a jury.
“So let me get this straight,” s
ays Fisher. “You’re not arguing that the evidence this witness might offer is irrelevant?” he says.
Lenore bites her lip. She’s not ready to concede the point.
“We don’t know whether it’s relevant or not,” I say. “We have no idea what he saw, or for that matter whether he saw anything.”
Fisher swivels in his big black tufted chair, head resting back, taking in the track lights on the ceiling while he thinks.
I don’t give him too long.
“A defendant’s not entitled to know the identity of an anonymous informant not known to the police,” I tell him. “People v. Callen.” I cite him the case.
“But this is not an anonymous informant,” he says. “It’s not just the identity of the witness that’s in question, but whether the witness has any information relative to your case.”
“That’s true,” I say.
“So you’re asking me to mask from the defendant the very existence of this potential witness?”
“We are, your honor.”
He’s shaking his head. “No,” he says. “That goes too far.”
I argue with him, tell him there are real risks here.
“There are circumstances surrounding the location of the witness, what he was doing at the scene, that will not only imperil the investigation,” I say, “but perhaps put the life of this witness in jeopardy.”
Fisher looks at me.
“How could it endanger the witness?” he says.
“We have no idea who the killer or killers are,” I tell him. “They therefore know considerably more than we do. How much they know, the motives for these murders, we have no idea.”
“And?” he says.
“By disclosing the specifics—the circumstances surrounding this potential witness in open court, what we believe was happening up in that blind—with these details the killer may be able to find our witness before we can.”
I watch as the consequences of this argument settle on Fisher. He is no longer shaking his head. Then he comes back.
“But the defendant here.” He’s talking about Iganovich. “He has a right to any evidence that could be viewed as exculpatory, anything that might be useful in proving his innocence. The law demands that he be given this. How can I withhold it?” he says.
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